


Old Book, Clutter

by Anonymous



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012)
Genre: Death, Gen, Grieving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-30
Updated: 2014-05-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 12:23:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2692883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>The trunk has no lock; Leo pauses, bracing his hand against it, and takes a steadying breath. It opens noiselessly.</i> Leo going through Splinter's things after his death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old Book, Clutter

No one has touched the room since it happened. When Leo opens the doors and steps in, he’s struck by how dusty it is, how quiet and empty, skeletal. There are candles and incense, the futon he slept on, a wall scroll, and the old, battered trunk that’s been with them for as long as Leo can remember. There’s still a mug for tea sitting by the candles; Leo goes to check that it is empty. It is; the tea leaves are dried and brittle. Leo traces the rim with a finger.

He goes to the futon and kneels, smoothing out the blanket — he remembers this, too, remembers sitting in Splinter’s lap, squished against Donnie, the two of them sharing a ball of algae, pushing the blanket out with one hand and letting go and watching as it slowly sunk back onto them. Remembers laying on it with his brothers on their dais, talking, reading, doing nothing in particular, calling down to Splinter and asking him to join them just so they can steal his warmth.

Leo can’t resist taking a corner of it in hand and pressing it to his face — he inhales, slow and deep, and his throat closes so fast that he hardly has time to register that he’s about to cry, because it smells of Splinter still, but it’s faint, lost in the empty scent of dust and old incense smoke. He pulls it off entirely and bends into it, taking measured breaths until his eyes stop burning and the knot in his throat unwinds.

He carefully shakes it out, lays it back, makes sure it is as tidy as it was when he found it. He rubs at his eyes. He’ll have to take it out of here, eventually, when it’s less raw — they’ll put it somewhere special, where they can touch it and remember better times. It’ll do them good, he hopes.

The trunk has no lock; Leo pauses, bracing his hand against it, and takes a steadying breath. It opens noiselessly. Leo doesn’t register what he’s seeing at first, he’s so surprised: It’s divided into two sections by a small piece of plywood, with the smaller section holding the few clothes Splinter had and the other one stuffed full of all kinds of things, a clutter Leo would never expect from his collected and dignified master.

There’s broken pieces of weapons that Leo remembers — there, the broken handle of Raph’s first sais, the nunchucks Mikey used for ages before they cracked, the distinct blue hilt of Leo’s first failed attempt at forging a sword. Shuriken and bits of scrap metal that are unmistakably Donnie’s inventions gone wrong, origami stained and crinkled, a stuffed elephant that Leo thinks used to belong to Donnie, a set of marbles that Splinter said he was going to throw away because Raph and Mikey wouldn’t stop pinging them off each other and Leo nearly broke his neck tripping on them. Drawings and paintings and tentative attempts at calligraphy, bits of cloth, four tiny sweaters that Leo doesn’t remember. A huge scrapbook, leather-bound.

Leo picks it from the pell-mell disaster-zone of the trunk and sets it in his lap, lets it fall open wherever it may — and it falls open to a page full of pictures of them, row after row of them lined lovingly, pictures that Leo doesn’t even remember being taken. As he flips through it, his chest swells — his throat squeezes; tears begin to soak into his mask, but he is smiling, radiant with a happiness that is just as much from grief as it is from love. There are newspaper clippings, things that don’t explicitly say anything about them but that he remembers. More bits of art, notes that were scrawled out without thought, We’ll be home late, Sensei, and Leftovers are in the fridge — dont touch the panini!!!!

At the back, where the pages are blank, there are six envelopes, sealed and marked: Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello, April, Karai. Leo’s hand trembles as he eases them onto the floor. He lets himself trace the lettering of his name, lets himself imagine Splinter working by candlelight, the sure way he would have manipulated the brush.

He knows what he must do. He knows, but still he can’t quite bring himself to stand, can’t let go of the last new thing he will ever learn about his father, can’t leave the comforting pile of old things, physical testaments of their love for Splinter and his love for them.


End file.
